How Chicago Red Stars excluded “top of the table” Portland Thorns from the NWSL semifinals – Tactical analysis

Thanks to the goals of Katie Johnson and Sarah Woldmoe against Portland Thorns, Chicago Red Stars guaranteed their qualification to the NWSL Championship final which will see the latter facing Washington Spirit at Lynn Family Stadium to decide the winner of the tournament.

Chicago Red Stars made a great achievement already by excluding a strong team like Portland Thorns while playing away and exactly at Providence Park. What made this win even more glorious for Chicago Red Stars and more painful for Portland Thorns is the fact that Chicago Red Stars finished fourth in the standings while Portland Thorns were at the top of the table.

But as opposed to the structure of the championships in Europe where for example teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and perhaps other teams battle until the last fixture for the top spot to win the FAWSL title, the rules for the NWSL impose a semi-final between the top four teams and the winners qualify to a final match in order to decide the winner of the NWSL trophy.

In this tactical analysis article, we will be mainly looking at how were Chicago Red Stars able to get that result from a tactical perspective. This will include the analysis of the goals as well as the identification of their playing system and ideas. At the same time, a focus on Portland Thorns’ performance will also be made in order to determine what went wrong for them in this match.

Line-ups

The locals started the match with the 4-3-1-2 formation relying on Bella Bixby in goal, Natalia Kuikka, Emily Menges, Becky Sauerbrunn and Meghan Klingenberg in defence, Raquel Rodríguez, Angela Salem and Yazmeen Ryan as central midfielders behind Christine Sinclair, and the two strikers were Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver.

For Chicago Red Stars, the team used the 4-1-4-1 formation with Cassie Miller as a goalkeeper, Tatumn Milazzo, Sarah Gorden, Tierna Davidson and Arin Wright in defence, Sarah Woldmoe playing just in front of the defensive line, Rachel Hill and Morgan Gautrat on the wings with Danielle Colaprico and Vanessa DiBernardo playing as advanced playmakers just behind Kealia Watt. 

Portland Thorns’ attacking issues and loss reasons

Portland Thorns started the match with confidence and were generally better than Chicago Red Stars in terms of passing, with 78,05% of passing accuracy for the first and 67,19% for the latter. This was noticed on the pitch and what makes it clearer is the fact that in terms of possession, Portland Thorns held the ball much longer than their opponents with 60,71% against 39,28%.

Nevertheless, Portland Thorns did not exploit this possession advantage in the best of ways since they were not able to score despite shooting 20 times from which seven shots were on target. Therefore, we can’t say that Portland Thorns has playmaking issues. The team’s main issue that led to their loss was their finishing accuracy.